Christmas Baking

Hi everybody! 

As promised, today I have a slightly different post for you. Baking is something we always do on Christmas, so after years and years of helping in the kitchen, I’ve decided to attempt to bake on my own.

After a long time of thinking, Wine cookies, gingerbread cookies and French macarons were the ones I could not resist. Instead of just posting pictures, I thought you might want to know the recipes as well, so enough of talking, here they are:

French Macarons

These are one of the most difficult cookies to make. But then again, I’m here to show you the easiest way out ha-ha!

You will need:

4 egg whites
250g icing sugar
150g ground almonds
60g granulated sugar

The process:

Sift the icing sugar and the ground almonds and mix them together. (If you can’t find ground almonds anywhere, just mix them in your processor – I did it and it worked just fine)

Put two egg whites into the mixture.

In another bowl, mix granulated sugar with another two egg whites and whisk until it has a texture of foam and is shiny on top.

Gradually add the mixture into the foam. Be careful, as you shouldn’t mix it, just gently fold, so the foam texture stays, but everything also needs to be joined well.

When the mixture is ready, put it into a piping bag and create larger dots on a baking paper on top of a baking sheet. Don’t forget to pre-heat the oven to 140°C and bake for about 10 – 15 minutes.

Wine Cookies

This is basically my childhood on a plate. My grandma used to always bake these and they have always been my favourite. They are super easy to make and taste delicious.

You will need:

250g plain flour
250g vegetable shortening
7tbsp white wine
vanilla and icing sugar for dipping

The process:

Grate the vegetable shortening into sifted flour.

Add the wine and form dough.

Wrap the dough in an aluminium foil and let sit in a fridge for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough and cut out any shapes you want.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and bake for approx. 20 minutes until they’re golden.

Dip them in the vanilla and icing sugar right after you take them out of the oven, so the sugar sticks to them nicely. This step is very important, otherwise the cookies wouldn’t taste sweet at all.

Gingerbread Soft Cookies

It wouldn’t be Christmas without these, right? Many people prefer these cookies more thin and crunchy. However in my country we do them more thick and soft.

You will need:

750g plain flour
350g icing sugar
4 eggs
125g butter
5tbsp honey
1tsp soda bicarbonate
25g gingerbread spice

The process:

Sift the flour, powder sugar, soda bicarbonate and gingerbread spice together.

Add all the other ingredients and form dough.

Let it sit in a fridge for a night. (This is optional, but it helps the flavours to join better).

Roll out the dough (approx. 0,5 mm thick).

Cut out any kind of shapes.

Place the cookies onto a baking paper placed on a baking sheet.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and bake for approx. 20 minutes. Keep checking them though, because the length of the baking also depends on how big and thin your cookies are.

After taking them out of the oven, let them cool down and decorate them with icing.

The Icing Recipe

You will need:

4 cups of icing sugar
3 egg whites

The process:

Mix the eggs on medium speed until bubbles start to appear.

Lower the speed, add the sugar and whisk until it has a foam texture (same as with the macarons). It should take you somewhere between 2 – 4 minutes.

If you decide to re-create any of these goodies, send me pictures on Instagram, Twitter or any other of my social media. All of them are up in the Contact section.

Bonnie. xoxo